Somewhere between work and home between, husband and daughter, between greyhound and rabbits, between chaos and order, between garden gloves and sewing machine, between food and sleep, there is this blog.

Saturday, October 20, 2007

Drums in the deep.

Peter and I attended a tabla workshop with Issam Houshan last weekend. He is a very famous and accomplished drummer in the Middle-Eastern style and it was a great experience to learn even the small amount of technique we were able to cover in the 3 hours we spent under his instruction.The sounds he's able to get out of his drum were just amazing! Everything from deep, rich reverberating "doums" to ear-splitting sharp "teks". I actually own a smaller size of the exact same drum that he uses for performances: the Issam Signature Doumbek. My only complaint about the workshop was that, with 40-odd drummers in the room, it was difficult to hear what kind of a sound I was making as we all simultaneously practiced the rhythms. So I picked up the drum when I got home and gave it a whirl. Turns out when I play the tabla, it sounds like I'm beating on a cardboard box with oven mitts on.